A Calculated Defense

He had gathered enough information from the board members to piece together that they didn't know that Miss Granger was the student in question. It seemed that Lucius had kept that information to himself. It was time to out that little secret. In a voice that sounded like he could have been chatting about the weather, Dumbledore said, "You must be referring to our muggle-born student, Miss Granger. When she is here at Hogwarts, I am her legal guardian. As such, Professor McGonagall and I did nothing wrong."

One of the other members present spoke up, "What about the fact that her parents wrote a letter stating that she was not to participate in the second task?"

Albus folded his hands on top of the table, giving off the appearance of being deep in thought. In reality, he was skimming their thoughts again, looking for how they felt about the issue. A majority of the members were surprised, and disgusted, that they were defending a Mudblood. There were a couple that truly cared but they were in the minority.

With enough information to proceed, Dumbledore said in his best Wizengamot voice, "Thank you all for your concern regarding Miss Granger's safety. I can assure you that at no time was she in danger. Now, is there anything else for us to discuss? Perhaps we could re-open the issue of increasing the budget for enrolling muggle-borns?" He knew that nothing would make the Board of Governors flee faster than asking for more money to help muggle-born students enroll.

After a few moments of discussion, the members of the board began filing from the room. A few nodded to Dumbledore as they exited while the majority left without so much as a backwards glance.

Minerva McGonagall was sitting on one of the benches outside of the meeting room, waiting to be summoned to face her fate. She was surprised when the school governors began filing out of the room, completely ignoring her presence. Confused, she stood up and walked back into the conference room.

Looking around, she saw Dumbledore sitting serenely in a chair, looking as if he didn't have a care in the world. "Albus?" she asked.

Dumbledore looked up from his ruminations at his Deputy Headmistress; he had completely put her out of his mind during the later part of the meeting. It took him a moment to realize that she wanted an explanation. His voice was back to that kind, grandfatherly, tone that everyone associated with him when he spoke, "Everything has been settled, Minerva. You may return to your duties." He patted her on the shoulder before heading off for the Great Hall to catch the end of dinner.

Lost in her thoughts, Minerva turned and headed off towards her quarters. She needed some additional time to reevaluate her views on many different things in the Wizarding World.

Harry and Hermione were about halfway through the article when they found the part re-hashing Harry's killing of the merman.

Grinding his teeth in frustration, Harry finished reading the article. Overall, the article really stuck it to Dumbledore and that pleased him. It was nice to see the headmaster take some grief for a while. Especially after Dumbledore had brought to light the details of the second task to Rita Skeeter, which resulted in the front-page article in the morning paper.

Hermione was having similar thoughts to Harry with one exception. She realized that Rita Skeeter must not know that Dumbledore was her source. If she knew, she probably wouldn't go after him in the press as she was currently. She was about to tell Harry her thoughts on the subject when he pushed her roughly to the ground from her seat on the bench.

Just as she was about to snap at him for pushing her, a spell impacted right where she had been sitting. Quickly she rolled to her feet, drew her wand, and turned to face her attackers.

Harry had just stretched his magical senses out when he felt the spell coming their way. He realized that it would hit Hermione so he quickly pushed her out of harms way and spun around, wand already in hand, to face the cowards.

Students were scrambling away in their haste to get out of the line of fire. The ones already at a safe distance stood there, entranced; as they watched the events unfold in front of them.

"We know you attacked Professor Snape, Potter! Now you are going to pay." A stocky boy yelled from the Slytherin table as he brought his wand up for a second spell.

Harry thought that the boy's name was Montague or something. He recognized him from the Quidditch Pitch but that was all he really knew about the boy. His voice was low, almost menacing, as he calmly replied, "Put your wand away if you know what's good for you and tell me what you are going on about."

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